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Well, I started Basquash way back when the first episode came out, and was following it week to week. I was enjoying it, the animation and even the story/characters were pretty intriguing, but somewhere along the line, I fell far behind, and I have only just caught up and finished it. It’s only Sunday, and I’ve already finished item one of my Spring Break criteria.

Basquash!

Well, when I first heard of this show, I determined that it looked God damn retarded. I don’t want to watch an anime about sports (granted, I watched Touch, and that was pretty damn good)! But then I saw a screenshot and thought I’d give it a try, I mean, it had stellar animation at the least. That’s what got me started watching this show, but the characters, plot, etc is why I stuck with it. Of, I only stuck with it for 13 episodes, then I stopped until about 2 days ago. However, even with that long break in between the times I watched this show, I never lost the plot-line, and never thought a single episode was bad. On the contrary, this show was excellent (except the very end, which was a retarded bit of product placement).

The Characters

Throughout this show, I kept getting confused when people referred to this character as "he" or "him". I was convinced that this was a girl. It all gets explained though later.

The characters were quite the characters. I mean, we have Dan, the main character who is kind of dumb, and just does whatever he wants, which is play basketball. We have the big boobed lady who loves feet. We have the mechanics. The princess. The dude who looks like a girl and has a WAY more complicated situation then any of us would think he has. There is no shortage of awesome characters, who each have their own backgrounds, agendas, and stories. There’s a lot more depth in these characters than in even some of the more serious of shows. I’ll just use my favorite character as an example (and honestly, I don’t even know if she’s my favorite character anymore):

Sela D. Miranda

Sela first appears in a challenge to Dan, somewhere in the early episodes. She promptly shows herself to be a masochist, as whenever someone hits her or something, she pretty much cums all over (emotionally). However, she changes indefinitely as the show becomes a bit more serious, and strays away from the fanservicey stuff. We learn of her background, where she was apparently abandoned, along with her mother, by her father, who was in charge of their town (or something…he was a rich dude anyway). Her mother than died, and she hated her father. The plot of Basqash goes back and visits her story at points throughout, as it does with other characters, like Iceman Hottie, who, as I think of it, is now my favorite character.

Iceman Hottie

How the hell could a dude who delivers a beat down with a basketball to people’s faces NOT be my favorite character? Iceman is awesome. I’m not going to say much about his INSANE past, because that might ruin the semi-BAMs, but his signature move is to chuck a ball as fast as he can at shit, and yell DESTROY as he does it (and then the ball pretty much destroys whatever it hits). He rules.

The indecision by myself to determine which character is the best shows you just how awesome the lineup is. Not only that, but all of the characters seem to have a pre-existing relationship in some way. Name any character, and I guarantee you can connect him or her to another character from before the show started. I’m moving on.

The Plot

SHIT. This was GREAT. You really can’t appreciate the plot until you finish the show and look back on the entire series. How did they fit so much development, so many changes, so much progress, and so many Nike advertisements into 26 episodes without making the series seem to fast, choppy, or awkward?

We start the series thinking, “Okay, here’s a show about people playing basketball in huge mechas.” But DAMN, does it manage to flip that shit around on us. I can’t pick out a specific time when any change in the plot happened, it kind of just slowly progressed into something bigger and bigger, and then in the end everything was kind of brought together for a slightly cliche but highly enjoyable ending. I’m not going to spoil anything but this show contains everything from basketball to talking rocks to ancient legends. It was done really really well.

Another thing I thought was good was how they ended the episodes. Each episode was almost like a small, 20 minute movie, and likewise the endings were done with a music buildup, content buildup, and a bunch of other shit that got you really prepared to watch the next episode, but they also allowed you to be able to stop if you wanted to. I don’t know how to explain it. What an episode and you’ll see.

The Animation

I guess shoes really do make a difference...

Really? Fucking fantastic. I wonder how much money Nike gave the show? Probably a shitload, considering that their logo is everywhere, they’re name get’s dropped a few times, and they’re shoes actually play a part in the plot (ugh). The whole involvement and product placements was bittersweet. I thought it gave the shows some realism, connectivity to real life, etc. But sometimes, it was just stupid, like in the episode that the above screenshot was taken from. I actually paused the video, threw up my hands, and proclaimed under my breath, “Wow……really?”

But still, I didn’t really mind any of the product placement. I’m guessing that Nike was a big reason why the animation was so phenomenal, so I’ll give them credit for that. Seriously, this might be the best animation I’ve ever seen in a series and even in some movies.

As I wrote this review, my grade for this show kept rising. The more I think about it, the better Basquash seems to me. I can’t give it a 5^^, because I just don’t think it deserves it, and while I completely just sucked it’s dick, I think the best grade for Basquash would be a

FINAL GRADE = 5

Why a 5 and not a 5*? I don’t know. I might even change it later.

After watching this, Bill had nothing to say other than, "BASQUASH!!!"